look who's digging their own grave
by writing for the braindead
Summary: But tonight Ventus curls beside the corpse that was once the boy who loved him, and he weeps for his loss, and his heart beats an aching funeral tune within his chest. / Warning: Death CW / - AU {VanVen}


look who's digging their own grave

_vanven_

writing for the braindead

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warnings: death cw / ancient greece AU

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_[The first thing you need to know is… Even death has a heart.]_

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**part 1: what will you have left?**

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"What would you do?" Vanitas asks, with blood tracing dull red streaks down his sides. "If I were to die."

Ventus pauses, his hand going still on the gash in Vanitas' chest. "If you were to die?" he repeats, his voice that carefully constructed steadiness that makes Vanitas's chest tight.

"In battle," The raven clarifies, watching their shadows on the tent wall. Their outlines are blurred, jumping with the candlelight, but he's studied Ventus's profile well enough to picture it anyway, to imagine the frown tugging at his lips and the creases forming between his eyes.

"You won't," The blonde replies, after a long moment of silence. His cleaning starts up again, a little rougher, the cloth dragging painfully over the wound. "You are the greatest warrior that I've ever known."

Vanitas nods once, tersely, dropping his eyes to his bare feet. "But if I did."

This time, Ventus's hands don't even falter, they just keep cleaning. He doesn't say anything for a long time, just rinses the cloth regularly and goes back to his cleaning. He is upset, Vanitas knows, and angry that he would push such a question, but there is a morbid curiosity growing in Vanitas, sparked by the deaths and the funerals and the pyres surrounding them each day.

"I would die, too," Ventus says quietly, after so long that Vanitas had given up hope on an answer. He pulls his hands away from his side, drops the cloth into the water and pushes it away, rests back on his heels. "I would- to live without you would be agony."

Ventus's voice is the same carefully measured tone, but it wavers on the last word, catches in his throat and cracks a little. Vanitas feels it in his chest, like a bruise blossoming. He turns, looks up and across at Ventus kneeling beside him, at the fierce certainty in his eyes.

"I would die," Ventus says again, lifting his head to meet Vanitas's gaze, and Vanitas believes it like he has never believed anything before, hot and fiery and infinite in the pit of his soul.

He reaches out and catches his hand, pulls until they're pressed together tightly and he can wrap his arms around the blond. "I would wait for you," he whispers. "On the shores of Styx. I wouldn't cross until you were by my side."

Ventus's smile chases away the last of his anger, replaces it with something sad and bittersweet. He presses his forehead against Vanitas, his hands cradling the other's face, and breathes, "Thank you," until Vanitas kisses the words out of his mouth.

(Later, much later, he presses a hand to the corpse that once was Vanitas, and asks, "Wait for me, my love, where you promised to wait for me.")

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**part 2: it scares me half to death.**

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He was always smaller, Ventus knows, and more softer around the edges, skinny and scrawny and mortal, but strong despite that, solid even when things come crashing down, steady when most men would crumble.

He's been promoted to the frontline; the gold armour drowns him. It is too large for his frame, built for those with the strength of demigods, not the disowned sons of nobody. The gold looks too gaudy against his skin, nearly ridiculous instead of majestic, awe-inspiring. His fingers are uneasy on the hilt of his sword, shifting nervously to tap against the guard. He would look laughable, if it weren't for the sharpness of his eyes.

"You fool," Ventus says, hands dancing over straps and buckles like a worried mother. He had insisted on dressing his friend alone, on stealing this chore for himself in case it is the last they'll ever share.

Vanitas smiles regardless and inclines his head. "It must be done. The men need me to fight."

"The men need anyone to fight," Ventus refuses, his palms pausing on Vanitas's shoulders. "Not you."

"But I am anyone," Vanitas points out, almost scolding, and Ventus digs his nails into bare, breakable skin. He can feel Vanitas's pulse thumping under his hands, fast like a trapped bird's wings.

"You are not, you are different, you are special," he says quietly, and Vanitas smiles again, lifting his free hand to catch Ventus's chin.

He leans forward carefully, awkward in the unfamiliar armour, and presses his lips to the corner of Ventus's mouth. "It must be done," he repeats, soft and warm and strong, and Ventus aches with the tenderness of the touch.

When Vanitas straightens and steps back, his eyes are softer, sadder, resigned. He doesn't look like a leader. He looks like a man, like a soldier, like something fragile and transient, beautiful in his mortality. His fingers tighten on the sword, his chin lifts almost imperceptibly, his smile is that of a warrior. Ventus can see a victor in his stance, can almost see the makings of a leader in the set of his jaw, thinks about the years he has spent watching him from this side of the armour. "Fool," Ventus says again, his fingers trailing down golden shoulder plates and leather arm guards to catch Vanitas's hands in his own. "My beautiful fool."

Ventus lifts their hands, pulls them to his mouth and kisses them; a blessing, a good-luck charm, a goodbye.

He has started mourning Vanitas already.

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_[I carried Vanitas's soul softly through the battlefield. I watched the contents of his soul for a moment and saw a boy who wanted nothing more than to live, I saw him laughing and experiencing happiness in the form of a blonde, and I saw a boy dying on a battlefield, imagining a kiss from the only person he ever loved, imagining a life where he could have just another chance. He does something to me, that boy. Always has. It's his only detriment.]_

_[He crushes my heart and makes me cry.]_

_[Because it is in this moment on the battlefield where I find humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both.]_

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**part 3: this is how it feels to take a fall.**

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They bring the body back broken and bloody, and apologise.

No apology can fix this. What of the man? he wants to say. What of my Vanitas? Will you build me another of him, bolder and brighter and better than before? Will you piece him back together, replace the shattered bones and the slaughtered flesh? Will you breathe life back into him so I may see him smile again?

He sends them away before his happyless laughter turns to tears. Tells them to leave, nobody else is his concern. It is not his concern, not when his Vanitas lies lifeless on their bedding, skin torn open and hair matted with blood.

"You were not supposed to die," Ventus says, when he is alone in the tent. And then, because Vanitas does not reply, because his lips are pale and still, he shouts it to the gods instead; "He was never supposed to die."

The silence makes him angry, makes him weep, makes him fall to his knees and bury his face in his hands. It feels alien, heavy on his skin like drying blood, here in the tent where Vanitas used to laugh with him, eyes alight and dancing with something wicked and clever and fond.

Vanitas's hand is cold when he grasps it in his own. There is no pulse leaping under his skin, no steady heartbeat to anchor himself to, no stutters in the pattern when he presses his mouth to the palm. It makes him angrier, but most of all: it makes him sadder. He sobs into the stillness, presses Vanitas's hand closer to muffle the keening, desperate sounds that tear out of him like weapons, like monsters, like godly terrors.

"It will not have been in vain," he promises, breathes the words into Vanitas's skin, voice wavering around them. "I will make certain of it. I will make sure this war will end, and then I will follow you to the underworld and search for you in the afterlife. I will not rest until you are mine again."

He reaches forward with trembling fingers, cradles his beloved's face in his palms. "I will find you," he whispers, fierce enough that the gods themselves believe it. "We will be together again, I swear it."

And Ventus leans down and looks at Vanitas's lifeless face, really looks, and in this moment Ventus kisses Vanitas, soft and fleeting and tender. He tasted dusty and sweet with a hint of something metallic. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glimmer of a sword. He kisses Vanitas long and soft, and when he pulls himself away - forces himself to - and emits a tiny sob, he touched the other's lips with his fingers.

Tomorrow they will burn his body.

But tonight Ventus curls beside the corpse that was once the boy who loved him, and he weeps for his loss, and his heart beats an aching funeral tune within his chest.

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_[It amazes me what humans can do, even when tears are flowing down their faces and they stagger on.] – The Book Thief, Markus Zusak_


End file.
